Exploring new web-based tools to identify public interest in science

There is scant research-based evidence regarding what the public is interested in knowing about science, and more knowledge is needed to tailor relevant and engaging formal and free-choice science environments for different publics. This methodological paper describes the potential and limitations of three existing web-based tools — Google Trends, Google Zeitgeist, and Google Insights for Search — for PUS research. It shows how these tools can be used to (1) identify interests in science and pseudoscience, (2) conduct a cross-national comparison of popular science and pseudoscience-related searches and (3) discover possible motivations when searching for specific terms. Trends identified using analyses of online queries are discussed. These provide a bottom-up assessment of PUS, and may add another argument to the controversy regarding quantitative measures and the deficit model

Cyberinfrastructure · Data science · Epistemology · Pseudoscience · Public awareness of science · Science communication · Science education · Sociology · World Wide Web · Zeitgeist · Climate Change Communication and Perception · Computer Science · Media Studies and Communication · Misinformation and Its Impacts

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